Re: Digest for less-wrong-parents@googlegroups.com - 2 updates in 2 topics

[Glenn Thomas Davis]

> I remember a time when my father-in-law told me that elementary finance and 
> law should be part of the school curriculum. And he meant practical aspects 
> like what kinds of contracts are there, what kind of property, how they are 
> enforced, default obligations and such.

I note that I have no education in such things (I'm an autodidact college dropout), and it's a hindrance as an adult. It would be great to educate myself and my homeschooled 9-year-old daughter in parallel. Can anyone point me toward an efficient source of instruction in these matters? (I live in the CA SF South Bay Area FWIW.)

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 9:15 PM <less-wron...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

less-wron...@googlegroups.com

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• Economy and the Unexpected Effects of Contracts - part of the *Preparing for Real Life* Sequence - 1 Update
• The Parents are Away - A first post in a sequence about helping children to become autonomous and self-reliable - 1 Update

Economy and the Unexpected Effects of Contracts - part of the *Preparing for Real Life* Sequence

Gunnar Zarncke <g.za...@googlemail.com>: Jan 16 06:50AM -0800 I remember a time when my father-in-law told me that elementary finance and law should be part of the school curriculum. And he meant practical aspects like what kinds of contracts are there, what kind of property, how they are enforced, default obligations and such. It made tremendous sense. Since then I wondered how I'd teach my children those missing parts.   Maybe I should note that I am from Germany and yes, we get classes in economy, but if I'm not very misinformed that is all more theoretical, abstract and high level, nothing that would help you e.g. start a company. Maybe it is different in other countries, but I doubt it. I have the vague feeling that keeping the masses naive about such basic processes serves the elites and the system in some way...   So I started talking about property, contracts and such constructions early and with real examples. Today I see the consequences of my cunning teachings. Watch the capitalism raise its ugly head:   My son saw himself motivated to clean up his room: His media time was used up and he needed to fix his room to unlock more (see Sequence about Media and Housekeeping) . It was overdue. Remains of lots of completed and uncompleted projects littered the whole room. In most cases he solves this alone but this time he chose to do "radio advertizements". He had hooked up an amplifier to a loudspeaker in the living room and we heard: "Fun in the basement - join cleanup and get a coupon for stuff for worth 3EUR - only now!" (including voice and sound effects). It seemed to work, his brothers helped and I saw them carrying bags of garbage outside. And also some loot. But it also got a conflict in the end when one of the coupons should be traded in for some earlier debt instead of for getting scrapped stuff. Was that a valid use? Presumably the debt (which was put down at that time in writing, yeah real seriously, in a folder called "contracts") was about other used stuff. So reasoning that the coupon should cancel that debt was comprehensible. But the But the creditor judged no, that was not what was written on the coupon literally (of course there was such a coupon). Angry the coupon owner pronounced his dissatisfaction and destroyed the coupon and left.   How did this end? To be continued...

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The Parents are Away - A first post in a sequence about helping children to become autonomous and self-reliable

Gunnar Zarncke <g.za...@googlemail.com>: Jan 16 06:49AM -0800 Things may be different here in Germany or in other countries. As far as I know crime rate has declined over the last centuries internationally (except for some ups and downs of course). It is difficult to find long term data internationally online but I managed to google these too: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicide-rates-in-five-western-european-countries-1900-2009-pinker-2011-jpg.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burglaries_per_1,000_pop.svg#file   I surely haven't heard people being arrested for letting their children play alone. Critical glances and questions definitely happen though if a 5 year old is happily going alone to the kindergarten (200m, no streets, announced by phone). I mean children with their gps phones are 100 times more safe if left alone then 50 years back. Add in reduced crime rate there is definitely no objective reason for fear - except for subjective and social conventions and expectations which are often fueled by the media in their quest for attention by drama. Fear is the mind-killer. Switch of the TV and observe for yourself. Enjoy life everybody! Gunnar     Am Freitag, 15. Januar 2016 23:38:57 UTC+1 schrieb William Eden: >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to less-wrong-pare...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.   Am Freitag, 15. Januar 2016 20:46:28 UTC+1 schrieb Gunnar Zarncke:

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